PeckShield analysts warn of the increased number of fake tokens of Elon Musk

What’s new? Experts at cybersecurity company PeckShield have reported the appearance of about two dozen more fake tokens using the identity of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to promote them. The ads for the new fake assets came amid the closing of the billionaire’s deal to buy the social network Twitter. The coins are based on Ethereum and BNB Chain blockchains.

#PeckShieldAlert PeckShield has detected a batch of #TWIT newly created on Ethereum and BSC. ～25% of them appear to be #honeypot, and 4 out of them have already dropped more than -98% @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/3Ya268LLTy— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) October 27, 2022

What else did analysts report? According to PeckShield, four fake tokens have already dropped in price by 98%. Another 25% were created by attackers to steal funds (honeypot).

The tokens are called TWIT or Chief Twit in various spelling variations since that is the status Musk put on his Twitter account bio ahead of the deal closing. At least 20 coins have been created with such names. There are also variations of Twitter Coin and Twitter Inu. The latter is a reference to meme cryptocurrencies, whose mascot is a Shiba Inu dog. For example, Dogecoin (DOGE) is supported by Musk himself, while the token Floki Inu (FLOKI) was created after the billionaire said he wanted to get a dog of that breed and name it Floki.

DOGE gained 8,5% amid the news of the reviving of the deal to purchase Twitter. As of October 28, 11:30 UTC, the token is trading at $0,7975, having gained 4,66% per day, according to Binance.

Musk previously proposed integrating Dogecoin payments into Twitter to pay for a Twitter Blue subscription. In February, the social network added the ability to pay tips using Ethereum. Earlier, payments in BTC were already available on the platform. On October 27, Twitter announced a new feature, which will allow trading NFTs directly through tweets. The social network partnered with marketplaces Magic Eden, Rarible, Dapper Labs, and Jump.trade.

In late May, ahead of the Terra blockchain ecosystem’s hard fork, attackers sent out fake LUNA 2.0 tokens so that users would send them real assets in return, supposedly for “liquidation.”